What's a multiplication crossword?
Take a crossword grid, put digits in the squares instead of letters, and make every single clue a multiplication. That's the whole recipe — and it turns out to be the most pleasant times-table practice ever devised, because the grid does something a worksheet never can: it marks your work while you're still doing it. When 4 Across and 2 Down share a square, they have to agree on the digit in it. Multiply correctly and the crossings hand you free digits for the next clue; slip up and the grid starts arguing with you within a square or two. No red pen required.
If you've played our maths crosswords, this is the same cross-number machinery pointed at a single operation. The maths page serves the full menu — addition, subtraction, division, place value, number trivia. This page is the times-table deep dive: one skill, exercised from every direction it can be exercised from. Pick whichever suits the mood (or the lesson plan).
One operation, eight disguises
"Just multiplication" sounds narrow until you see how many coats it owns. Every clue here is a multiplication with exactly one answer, but the mix keeps rotating:
- Times tables, stretched — 7 × 64. The table you memorised, applied to a number nobody made you memorise.
- Doubles — Double 343. The two-times table in its friendliest coat, and the single most useful mental-maths move there is.
- Chains — 7 × 8 × 9. Three small factors, multiplied in whatever order you fancy (pro tip: 7 × 8 first, then × 9 — or spot that 8 × 9 is 72 and go from there. Order genuinely doesn't matter; that's the point of the chain).
- Place value — 144 × 10, 727 × 100. Multiplying by ten just shifts the digits along — the most satisfying free squares in the grid.
- The tens tables — 70 × 64. Your seven-times table wearing a zero. Do the small version, stick the zero back on.
- Round × round — 80 × 900. Two round numbers, one big round answer: multiply 8 × 9, then count zeros back on. The bigger grids love these.
- Squares — 26 × 26. A number times itself, always with a friendly root.
- Long multiplication — 6 × 40,257. On the biggest answers, a single-digit factor times something enormous: exactly the written method from school, with the grid checking every carry.
The last-digit game (solve before you multiply)
Multiplication leaks information, and a good cross-number solver learns to catch the drips. The last digit of any product depends only on the last digits of the factors — so for 6 × 44 you can write the final 4 before doing any real work (6 × 4 = 24, keep the 4). Anything × 5 ends in 0 or 5. Anything × 10 ends in 0. Any double is even. Meanwhile the size of the answer is telegraphed too: 7 × 64 has to land in the hundreds, so you know all three digits' worth of shape before you calculate one of them. Between last digits, first-digit estimates, and the crossings, it's often possible to corner an answer with barely any multiplying at all — which feels gloriously like cheating and is actually just number sense. (We won't tell.)
The worksheet that marks itself
Teachers and parents: this page is for you as much as for the puzzlers. Times-table practice is the classic homework grind, and its classic problem is feedback — a child can fill a whole worksheet with confident wrong answers and learn the mistakes. In a multiplication crossword the crossings referee every answer as it lands, so errors get caught in the moment, by the puzzle, without anyone hovering. The printable packs just below the puzzle were built for exactly this: pick a size, add a name & date line, keep the answer key pages back, print a class set. The three sizes are a ready-made differentiation ladder — the 5×5 is a ten-minute starter with around ten quick products, the 9×9 keeps early finishers multiplying for a good while. And since every press of the button is a brand-new puzzle, next week's practice never repeats this week's.
Where did all the primes go?
An honest peek behind the curtain: not every number can appear in these grids. Every answer here must be somebody's multiplication — a times-table product, a double, a square, something round. Large primes and their stubborn cousins don't multiply politely (the only honest clue for 1,061 would be "1 × 1,061", and we respect you too much), so they simply never show up. A few numbers have exactly one good multiplication clue; the popular ones carry two or three, so a returning answer usually arrives wearing a different sum. Two more house rules, both classic cross-number conventions: no answer ever starts with 0 (a free hint — every first square holds 1–9), and every clue is self-contained. Traditional cross-figures adore clues like "Twice 3 Across", which knot the grid into one big simultaneous equation; ours solve alone, in any order, because we're easy-crosswords.com and we mean it. Every grid is verified complete by the machinery that builds it before you see it.
Common questions
Which times tables do I need to know?
The clues draw on the 2 to 12 times tables — but "need to know" is generous, because the grid teaches as you go. A shaky 7s table plus solid crossings will get you through, and getting through is precisely how a shaky 7s table stops being shaky.
What ages are these good for?
Learning or consolidating times tables — typically around 8 and up — with no ceiling: the bigger grids' long multiplications and round-number products keep adult mental arithmetic honest too. Start younger solvers on the 5×5 and let the crossings do half the checking.
How is this different from your maths crosswords?
Maths crosswords mix every operation — sums, differences, divisions, number words, famous numbers. This page is multiplication only, top to bottom, which makes it the sharper tool for practising tables and the written method. Same grid magic, narrower diet.
Can I use a calculator?
It's your puzzle — but this page especially rewards going without. Times tables, doubles, and the last-digit tricks above are the whole workout; a calculator does the workout for you. A fair compromise: mental maths first, calculator to settle disputes with the grid.
Can I print these for my class?
Please do — open Download a puzzle pack under the puzzle, choose the size and how many, tick the name & date line, and keep the answer key for marking (or don't — the crossings mostly mark it for you). Photocopying for your classroom is absolutely fine.
Will I see the same puzzle twice?
No — your device remembers every grid you've played here and the engine refuses to repeat one. With a couple of thousand numbers in the pool, most carrying several different multiplications, fresh grids effectively never run out.